A boat with dozens of migrants rips apart in the English Channel off France, killing 12

Update A boat with dozens of migrants rips apart in the English Channel off France, killing 12
Firefighters and Civil Protection agents stand next to bags containing the bodies of migrants who died after the sinking of a migrant boat attempting to cross the English Channel to England, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France, on Sep. 3, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 03 September 2024
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A boat with dozens of migrants rips apart in the English Channel off France, killing 12

A boat with dozens of migrants rips apart in the English Channel off France, killing 12
  • “Unfortunately, the bottom of the boat ripped open,” said Olivier Barbarin, mayor of Le Portel near the fishing port of Boulogne-sur-Mer
  • “If people don’t know how to swim in the agitated waters ... it can go very quickly“

PARIS: A boat carrying migrants ripped apart in the English Channel as they attempted to reach Britain from northern France on Tuesday, plunging dozens into the treacherous waterway and leaving 12 dead, authorities said.

Many didn’t have life preservers in what one official called the deadliest migrant accident in the channel this year.

“Unfortunately, the bottom of the boat ripped open,” said Olivier Barbarin, mayor of Le Portel near the fishing port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where a first aid post was set up to treat victims. “If people don’t know how to swim in the agitated waters ... it can go very quickly.”

The mayor said 12 died after initially giving a toll of 13. Lt. Etienne Baggio, a spokesman for the French agency that oversees that stretch of sea, said rescuers pulled a total of 65 people from the waters in a search operation that lasted more than four hours. Doctors confirmed 12 died, he said.

Baggio called it the deadliest migrant boat tragedy in the English Channel this year. In July, four migrants died while attempting the crossing on an inflatable boat that capsized and punctured. Five others, including a child, in another attempt in April. And five dead were recovered from the seas or found washed up along a beach after a migrant boat ran into difficulties in the dark and winter cold of January.

Many of those aboard the vessel that broke up in the English Channel on Tuesday didn’t have life vests, Baggio said. It was not immediately clear what kind of boat it was. Three helicopters, a plane, two fishing boats and more than six other vessels were involved in the rescue operation.

In another sea tragedy Tuesday involving migrants seeking a better life in Europe, a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast, leaving one person dead and 22 missing, Libyan authorities said.

The agency overseeing the rescue operation in the English Channel said the boat got into difficulty off Gris-Nez point between Boulogne-sur-Mer and the port of Calais further north. Sea temperatures off northern France were around 20 degrees C, or about 68 F.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin went to Boulogne-sur-Mer to meet those involved in handling what he described as the “terrible shipwreck.” He said the boat was frail and small — less than 7 meters (23 feet) long — and that smugglers are packing more and more people aboard such vessels.

Last week, the leaders of France and Britain agreed to deepen cooperation on illegal migration in the channel.

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called it “a horrifying and deeply tragic incident” and paid tribute to French rescuers “who undoubtedly saved many lives, but sadly could not save everyone.”

“The gangs behind this appalling and callous trade in human lives have been cramming more and more people onto increasingly unseaworthy dinghies, and sending them out into the Channel even in very poor weather,” she said.

“They do not care about anything but the profits they make, and that is why — as well as mourning the awful loss of life — the work to dismantle these dangerous and criminal smuggler gangs and to strengthen border security is so vital and must proceed apace.”

Europe’s increasingly strict asylum rules, growing xenophobia and hostile treatment of migrants have been pushing them north.

At least 30 migrants have died or gone missing while trying to cross to the UK this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. That figure doesn’t include the latest deaths.

At least 2,109 migrants have tried to cross the English Channel on small boats in the past seven days, according to UK Home Office data updated Tuesday. The data includes people found in the channel or on arrival.


South Korean court issues arrest warrant for ex-president Yoon again

South Korean court issues arrest warrant for ex-president Yoon again
Updated 10 sec ago
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South Korean court issues arrest warrant for ex-president Yoon again

South Korean court issues arrest warrant for ex-president Yoon again
  • Yoon plunged South Korea into a political crisis when he sought to subvert civilian rule on December 3, sending troops to prevent lawmakers voting down his declaration of martial law
SEOUL: A South Korean court on Thursday issued a fresh arrest warrant for former president Yoon Suk Yeol, enabling prosecutors to forcibly bring him in for questioning after he refused to appear at his summons multiple times.
The special counsel investigating Yoon and his wife, former first lady Kim Keon Hee, said in a statement that “an arrest warrant has been issued today for former president Yoon Suk Yeol.”
Yoon plunged South Korea into a political crisis when he sought to subvert civilian rule on December 3, sending troops to parliament in a bid to prevent lawmakers voting down his declaration of martial law.
He became the first sitting president in the country to be taken into custody when he was detained in January after resisting arrest for weeks, using his presidential security detail to thwart investigators.
He was released on procedural grounds in March while his insurrection trial continued, but was detained again early July over concerns he might destroy evidence related to the case.
Prosecutors investigating allegations of parliamentary election tampering summoned Yoon for questioning — but he failed to appear, with his lawyers citing health issues.
On Wednesday, they filed a renewed request for a detention warrant.
Now that the warrant has been issued, prosecutors are authorized to enter Yoon’s current detention facility and compel him to appear for questioning.
Legal troubles are also mounting for Yoon and his wife in cases unrelated to his martial law attempt.
Prosecutors are investigating allegations that a shaman, Jeon Seong-bae, received a diamond necklace and a luxury designer handbag from a senior official of the Unification Church and passed them on to Kim.

‘Chamber of horrors’ being exhumed at Ireland mass baby grave

‘Chamber of horrors’ being exhumed at Ireland mass baby grave
Updated 45 min 37 sec ago
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‘Chamber of horrors’ being exhumed at Ireland mass baby grave

‘Chamber of horrors’ being exhumed at Ireland mass baby grave
  • The burial site has forced Ireland and the Catholic Church to reckon with a legacy of having shunned unmarried mothers and separated them from their children left at the mercy of a cruel system

TUAM: Only one stone wall remains of the old mother and baby home in this town, but it has cast a shadow over all of Ireland.

A mass grave that could hold up to nearly 800 infants and young children — some of it in a defunct septic tank — is being excavated on the grounds of the former home run by the Bon Secours Sisters, an order of nuns.

The burial site has forced Ireland and the Catholic Church — long central to its identity — to reckon with a legacy of having shunned unmarried mothers and separated them from their children left at the mercy of a cruel system.

The grave was accidentally discovered by two boys a half century ago. But the true horror of the place was not known until a local historian began digging into the home’s history.

Catherine Corless revealed that the site was atop a septic tank and that 796 deceased infants were unaccounted for. Her findings caused a scandal when the international news media wrote about her work in 2014.

When test excavations later confirmed an untold number of tiny skeletons were in the sewage pit, then-Prime Minister Enda Kenny called it a “chamber of horrors.”

Pope Francis later apologized for the church’s “crimes” that included forced separations of unwed mothers and children. The nuns apologized for not living up to their Christianity.

A cold, cramped and deadly place

The homes were not unique to Ireland and followed a Victorian-era practice of institutionalizing the poor, troubled and neglected children, and unmarried mothers.

The Tuam home was cold, crowded and deadly. Mothers worked there for up to a year before being cast out — almost always without their children.

Corless’ report led to a government investigation that found 9,000 children, or 15 percent, died in mother and baby homes in the 20th century. The Tuam home — open from 1925 to 1961 — had the highest death rate.

Corless said she was driven to expose the story “the more I realized how those poor, unfortunate, vulnerable kids, through no fault of their own, had to go through this life.”

Discovering deeply held secrets

Corless’ work brought together survivors of the homes and children who discovered their own mothers had given birth to long-lost relatives who died there.

Annette McKay said there’s still a level of denial about the abuse, rape and incest that led some women to the homes while fathers were not held accountable.

“They say things like the women were incarcerated and enslaved for being pregnant,” McKay said. “Well, how did they get pregnant? Was it like an immaculate conception?”

Her mother ended up in the home after being raped as a teenager by the caretaker of the industrial school where she had been sentenced for “delinquency” after her mother died and father, a British soldier, abdicated responsibility.

Her mother, Margaret “Maggie” O’Connor, only revealed her secret when she was in her 70s, sobbing hysterically when the story finally came out.

Six months after giving birth in Tuam in 1942, O’Connor was hanging laundry at another home where she had been transferred when a nun told her, “the child of your sin is dead.”

She never spoke of it again.

Some 20 years later, a Sunday newspaper headline about a “shock discovery” in Tuam caught McKay’s attention. Among the names was her long-lost sister, Mary Margaret O’Connor, who died in 1943.

Shame’s long shadow

Barbara Buckley was born in the Tuam home in 1957 and was 19 months old when she was adopted by a family in Cork.

She was an adult when a cousin told her she’d been adopted and was later able to find her birth mother through an agency.

Her mother came to visit from London for two days in 2000 and happened to be there on her 43rd birthday, though she didn’t realize it.

“I found it very hard to understand, how did she not know it was my birthday?” Buckley said. “Delving deep into the thoughts of the mothers, you know, they put it so far back. They weren’t dealing with it anymore.”

She said her mother had worked in the laundry and was sent away after a year, despite asking to stay longer. Her lasting memory of the place was only being able to see the sky above the high walls.

At the end of their visit, her mother told her it had been lovely to meet her and her family, but said she’d never see her again.

Buckley was devastated at the rejection and asked why.

“She said, ‘I don’t want anyone finding out about this,’” Buckley said. “Going back to 1957 — and it was still a dark secret.”

Luck of the Irish

Pete Cochran considers himself one of the lucky ones.

He was 16 months old when he got out of the home and was adopted by a family in the US, where he avoided the stigma that would have dogged him as a so-called illegitimate child in his homeland.

During his visit to Tuam before the dig began, a man from town told him at a bar: “I respect you now, but growing up, I used to spit on you because that’s what I was taught.”

Cochran hopes the dig turns up few remains.

“I hope they don’t find 796 bodies,” he said. “That all these children were adopted and had a good life like I did.”

McKay has had the same hope for her sister. But even if they found a thimble full of her remains, she’d like to reunite her with her mom, who died in 2016.

“The headstone hasn’t got my mother’s name on it because I fought everybody to say I refuse to put my mom’s name on until she can have her child with her,” McKay said.


Ukraine’s parliament to consider restoring power of anti-graft agencies

Ukraine’s parliament to consider restoring power of anti-graft agencies
Updated 57 min 38 sec ago
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Ukraine’s parliament to consider restoring power of anti-graft agencies

Ukraine’s parliament to consider restoring power of anti-graft agencies
  • Thousands of protesters rallied in Kyiv and other cities in recent days after lawmakers led by Zelensky’s ruling party rushed through amendments last week defanging the respected agencies
  • Ukrainian lawmakers on Thursday are expected to consider a bill restoring the independence of the country’s two main anti-corruption agencies

KYIV: Ukrainian lawmakers on Thursday are expected to consider a bill restoring the independence of the country’s two main anti-corruption agencies, aiming to defuse a political crisis that has shaken faith in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime leadership. Thousands of protesters rallied in Kyiv and other cities in recent days in a rare show of discontent after lawmakers led by Zelensky’s ruling party rushed through amendments last week defanging the respected agencies.

Zelensky reversed course after the outcry and under pressure from top European officials, who warned Ukraine was jeopardizing its bid for EU membership by curbing the powers of its anti-graft authorities. Demonstrations had continued even after he submitted the new bill restoring their independence, with hundreds rallying near the presidential administration in Kyiv late on Wednesday to chants of “Shame!” and “The people are the power!.”

“I really want parliament to vote (for the new measure) just as quickly as it did last time,” said protester Kateryna Kononenko, 36, referring to last week’s fast-tracked approval of the controversial amendments.

Activists also called for demonstrations near parliament ahead of Thursday’s vote in an attempt to pressure lawmakers to approve the new bill.

Eradicating graft and shoring up the rule of law are key requirements for Kyiv to join the EU, which Ukrainians see as critical to their future as they fend off a Russian invasion.

Last week’s amendments had given Zelensky’s hand-picked general prosecutor the power to transfer cases away from the anti-graft agencies and reassign prosecutors — a step critics had said was designed to protect allies from prosecution.

While much smaller, the rallies of the past week have sparked comparisons to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution, when protesters toppled a president they accused of corruption and heavy-handed rule. More than two-thirds of Ukrainians support the recent protests, according to a recent survey by Ukrainian pollster Gradus Research.

Corruption Fighters 

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) have stepped up a closely watched campaign against graft since Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

They have produced charges against lawmakers and senior government officials, including a then-deputy prime minister who was accused last month of taking a $345,000 kickback. Speaking to Reuters last Friday, after Zelensky’s reversal, NABU chief Semen Kryvonos said he expected pressure against his agency to continue, fueled by what he described as corrupt forces uninterested in cleaning up Ukraine.

He added that he and other anti-corruption officials felt a greater sense of responsibility following the protests, but also called on the country’s leadership to help their effort.

“This responsibility must be shared with the government, which needs to react and say, ‘Okay, there’s corruption here — let’s destroy it.’“


Trump says Canada’s Palestine statehood stance may hurt trade deal

Trump says Canada’s Palestine statehood stance may hurt trade deal
Updated 31 July 2025
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Trump says Canada’s Palestine statehood stance may hurt trade deal

Trump says Canada’s Palestine statehood stance may hurt trade deal
  • Trump says Canada’s Palestine statehood stance may hurt trade deal

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday it will be difficult to make a trade deal with Canada after the country announced it is backing Palestinian statehood.

Canadian Prime Minster Mark Carney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Carney announced on Wednesday Canada is planning to

recognize

the State of Palestine at a meeting of the United Nations in September

Canada’s announcement follows France and Britain in recognizing a Palestinian state.

Israel and its closest ally, the US, both rejected Carney’s statements.

Canada and the US are working on negotiating a trade deal by August 1, the date Trump is threatening to impose a 35 percent tariff on all Canadian goods not covered by the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

Carney said on Wednesday that

tariff negotiations

with US President Donald Trump’s administration have been constructive, but the talks may not conclude by the deadline.


‘Silent killer’: the science of tracing climate deaths in heatwaves

‘Silent killer’: the science of tracing climate deaths in heatwaves
Updated 31 July 2025
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‘Silent killer’: the science of tracing climate deaths in heatwaves

‘Silent killer’: the science of tracing climate deaths in heatwaves
  • Science can show that human-caused climate change is making heatwaves hotter and more frequent
  • Unlike floods and fires, heat kills quietly, with prolonged exposure causing heat stroke, organ failure, and death

PARIS: A heatwave scorching Europe had barely subsided in early July when scientists published estimates that 2,300 people may have died across a dozen major cities during the extreme, climate-fueled episode.

The figure was supposed to “grab some attention” and sound a timely warning in the hope of avoiding more needless deaths, said Friederike Otto, one of the scientists involved in the research.

“We are still relatively early in the summer, so this will not have been the last heatwave. There is a lot that people and communities can do to save lives,” Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, told AFP.

Heat can claim tens of thousands of lives during European summers but it usually takes months, even years, to count the cost of this “silent killer.”

Otto and colleagues published their partial estimate just a week after temperatures peaked in western Europe.

While the underlying methods were not new, the scientists said it was the first study to link heatwave deaths to climate change so soon after the event in question.

Early mortality estimates could be misunderstood as official statistics but “from a public health perspective the benefits of providing timely evidence outweigh these risks,” Raquel Nunes from the University of Warwick told AFP.

“This approach could have transformative potential for both public understanding and policy prioritization” of heatwaves, said Nunes, an expert on global warming and health who was not involved in the study.

Science can show, with increasing speed and confidence, that human-caused climate change is making heatwaves hotter and more frequent.

Unlike floods and fires, heat kills quietly, with prolonged exposure causing heat stroke, organ failure, and death.

The sick and elderly are particularly vulnerable, but so are younger people exercising or toiling outdoors.

But every summer, heat kills and Otto — a pioneer in the field of attribution science — started wondering if the message was getting through.

“We have done attribution studies of extreme weather events and attribution studies of heatwaves for a decade... but as a society we are not prepared for these heatwaves,” she said.

“People think it’s 30 (degrees Celsius) instead of 27, what’s the big deal? And we know it’s a big deal.”

When the mercury started climbing in Europe earlier this summer, scientists tweaked their approach.

Joining forces, Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine chose to spotlight the lethality — not just the intensity — of the heat between June 23 and July 2.

Combining historic weather and published mortality data, they assessed that climate change made the heatwave between 1C and 4C hotter across 12 cities, depending on location, and that 2,300 people had likely perished.

But in a notable first, they estimated that 65 percent of these deaths — around 1,500 people across cities including London, Paris, and Athens — would not have occurred in a world without global warming.

“That’s a much stronger message,” said Otto.

“It brings it much closer to home what climate change actually means and makes it much more real and human than when you say this heatwave would have been two degrees colder.”

The study was just a snapshot of the wider heatwave that hit during western Europe’s hottest June on record and sent temperatures soaring to 46C in Spain and Portugal.

The true toll was likely much higher, the authors said, noting that heat deaths are widely undercounted.

Since then Turkiye, Greece and Bulgaria have suffered fresh heatwaves and deadly wildfires.

Though breaking new ground, the study has not been subject to peer review, a rigorous assessment process that can take more than a year.

Otto said waiting until after summer to publish — when “no one’s talking about heatwaves, no one is thinking about keeping people safe” — would defeat the purpose.

“I think it’s especially important, in this context, to get the message out there very quickly.”

The study had limitations but relied on robust and well-established scientific methodology, several independent experts told AFP.

Tailoring this approach to local conditions could help cities better prepare when heatwaves loom, Abhiyant Tiwari, a health and climate expert who worked on India’s first-ever heat action plan, told AFP.

“I definitely see more such studies coming out in the future,” said Tiwari from NRDC India.

Otto said India, which experiences tremendously hot summers, was a “prime candidate” and with a template in place it was likely more studies would soon follow.